So what's the 4X crowd playing these days?

[Luxion]

There's been some interesting looking releases in the 4X genre this last year or so. Has anyone found their new favorite 4X game or are we still playing old classics? Or still lost in Crusader Kings perhaps?

I'm currently messing about with Civ IV (I bounced off of Civ V) I'm thinking of getting into something new as Civ has gotten stale. Thought maybe I'd get some ideas. I'm not big on fantasy themed games but as long as the difficulty is there and interesting tactical choices to be made then the theme is not important. free action movies [http://watch68.net/movie-genres/action/]

I tried Warlock but found it too easy, I understand there is DLC to make it harder but I'm not sold. Fallen Enchantress looks lovely but I hear the AI is a useless pushover.

I love sci-fi stuff so there is that Pandora-First Contact. Anyone try it? Last I heard it was in an state that badly needed patches but that was some time ago. watch free comedy movies [http://watch68.net/movie-genres/comedy/] and free horror movies [http://watch68.net/movie-genres/horror/]

 

[DemikidZA]

Endless Legend is a pretty good fantasy 4X game, it's pretty original with its factions, e.g: the Broken Lords, basically they're people who had to bind their souls to their suits of armour in order to survive. Now because of that they've become sort of vampires who can drain "Dust" which is the universe's be all and end all currency/magic/nanomachines.

Endless Space is quite good from what I'm told but I could never get into space 4X apart from Sins of a Solar Empire

 

[meiam]

Yeah endless legend is the only game that really made a big impact, it's innovative and reasonably good. The Ai used to be dumb as a rock and now it's just dumb as a 4th grader (it's probably better than the civ AI).

I tried pandora but found it uninteresting, nothing special or any innovation, felt more like a civ 4 mod than anything else, the semi randomized tech tree is cool but nothing that special.

Otherwise might want to check out sword of stars, although that's pretty light on the development front and much more about space ship building.

 

[Sonmi]

Endless Legend is the one I'm playing at the moment, but as you implied in your OP, I'm one of those who fell to the temptation of GS.

Waiting for Civ VI, it looks good.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Presently hyped for Civ 6. Went from "ugh another Civ. Maybe I'll get it down the road" to "Why isn't Civ 6 out nowwwwww".

 

[Sonmi]

Presently hyped for Civ 6. Went from "ugh another Civ. Maybe I'll get it down the road" to "Why isn't Civ 6 out nowwwwww".

Gorgo officially being announced today shot my hype for the game way back up.

Alternate leaders were gravely missing from V, I'm glad they're back. Seems like we're only getting Gorgo in the vanilla game though, and Isabella of Castille in the first DLC wave. Still, it opens the doors for many opportunities.

 

[Recusant]

I realize that I should've brought this up twenty-three years ago, but while I may not be able to change it, I will not let it go unopposed: explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. How many of those words start with X? None of them. They all start with E. E and X are different letters, people. That said...

Sticking with the genre itself, Endless Legend is a lot of fun; the combat is an interesting compromise between the full tactical control of past games (which seems to have fallen out of favor for some reason) and the total hands-off approach of Endless Space and the like, and Legend's district system seems to be what inspired Civ 6's (based on what's been released, that is; the end product could be very different).

I have, of late, been having a blast learning Distant Worlds Universe (which feels like it should have a colon or hyphen or something in its title, but doesn't), which is something like the Dwarf Fortress of the genre; it has less a learning curve than a learning cliff, but is meaty enough that escaping once it sucks you in is difficult, and you'll have some amazing stories when you do get out.

As to Pandora, there is one question you need to ask before anything else: have you played Alpha Centauri? If so, you can jump right in; if not, you'll probably need to. The game has the sorriest excuse for a manual I've ever seen, and I say that having read thousands of them over multiple decades of gaming; it has absolutely nothing in about how to actually play the game. I don't mean "play the game well" or even "play the game competently"; it has system requirements, installation instructions, a couple of technical issues and how to fix them, and background story. That's it. That's the entire manual. It makes the people behind Dark Souls look helpful and informative by comparison. Pandora was very clearly a love letter to Alpha Centauri, and is far more deserving of the title of "spiritual successor" than Beyond Earth was, but that's not saying much. The gameplay is solid enough, but the writing is all but nonexistent.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Still playing Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Still playing "Distant Worlds" every now and then and it still remains my goto Space 4X game

 

[Zaltys]

Well... 4X used to be my favorite genre, but then I got addicted to Crusader Kings 2 and Football Manager. Since then, I haven't played 4X games much.

I've tried some of the newer ones, but they didn't grab me. I keep thinking to myself: "This just isn't as much as fun as Master of Magic/Orion".

 

[Satinavian]

Stellaris is pretty fun

 

[Bobular]

I've been playing a lot of Stellaris in-between Crusader Kings. If there was better ship customization then I would be insanely happy.

 

[Barbas]

Well, a while ago I thought I might just play myself a little bit of Anno 2205, but according to Steam reviews it sucks a big ol' dickus, so it looks like a rain check's in order on that puppy. I might get it in a future sale. But hey, Steam reviews aren't everything, so I'd say give it a look on YouTube and see if it floats your boat. It sure looks nice and is reportedly easier than previous titles in the series to pick up on (though a harder mode was patched in).

I played Anno 2070 and that one...ho boy, that was the most complex city-building sim I've ever played.

 

[Chessrook44]

The Endless games (Endless Legend, Endless Space, and the upcoming Endless Space 2) have generally been considered good. Endless Legend has even still been getting DLC expansions (There's a new one coming out tomorrow, focusing on adding an ocean-based civ and similar kinds of things). The company also does well making every civ feel and play very differently in all their games. One empire cannot possibly make peace... one empire cannot use food and consumes the currency to make pops... etc. etc. It's worth giving a look at one of their games.

And if you want a 4X game on steroids, Stellaris has been getting some pretty rave reviews, all things considered, though for that I'd wait a bit as they're doing an update/overhaul of a few things come October 20th.

Plus, of course, there's Civ VI, which a LOT of people have been wanting NAO.

 

[MHR]

Conquest of Elysium 4 came out November on Steam. I've played only a couple hours of it, and while it has a TON of variety in the classes you can play, unit diversity, and overworld decision-making, you might not like it 'cuz it's fantasy and the game is low-budget 2D, the units fight by themselves in combat and you don't have a direct hand in it.

I played CoE 3 for 194 hours and that's pretty much the same game, but CoE 4 is like an expansion and overhauls the combat from an even crappier version.

 

[Tanis]

Master of Orion came out recently and it's pretty good.
Nice, overall, design, and the AI isn't totally nuts.

Galactic Civilizations 3 isn't bad, though it barely runs on my computer, so I tend to play a lot more of GalCiv2:EU.

 

[Elijin]

Endless Legend has even still been getting DLC expansions (There's a new one coming out tomorrow, focusing on adding an ocean-based civ and similar kinds of things).

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Time to go buy things I guess.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I much prefer Space 4X to Land ones so I can't comment on Endless Legend though many seem to rave about it.
Might have to try it out sometime.

Except for Stellaris, which holds more a of future promise effect, none of the newer titles have lived up to the previous generation in my mind (Stellaris still needs a lot of work to make it a full-fledged 4X, but at least it has the potential).

The 4X titles I mostly play are Distant Worlds: Universe, Sword of the Stars Complete Collection and Space Empires IV Gold.

Hate to be that guy but oh well;
Crusader Kings is Grand Strategy, not 4X.
Sins of a Solar Empire is more like Grand RTS than 4X, though I admit that it straddle the borders.
Oh, and...uhm..Anno isn't 4X either...

 

[Pseudonym]

Civ IV mostly, since it has short games. This summer, when I had more time I played through EUIV with Venice, later Italy and became the most powerful country in the world. (I crushed both France and the Ottomans) I occasionally play a game of civ V but I feel like after a 1000 hours I've played enough of that. I have played a lot of CKII, but again, no time, at the moment to start a game that'll last me a week to get through.

In a few weeks Civ VI will come out and unless it is another BE situation, which it doesn't seem to be, I'll play that for months.

Hate to be that guy but oh well;
Crusader Kings is Grand Strategy, not 4X.

I don't know whether those two are mutually exclusive. Most 4X games are 'grand strategy' in the sense that they portray empires and nations during large timeframes wherein they have to employ a 'grand strategy'. Most grand strategy games have most of the X's in them. Expanding, exploiting and exterminating is certainly something you do in CKII. The only thing that distinguishes grand strategy games in the sense that most people use those word from regular strategy games is that one is more complicated.